Saturday, November 07, 2015

By Julia HahnPresumptive Senate Minority Leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer, tells CNN that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) was “not only totally committed” to the Obama-backed 2013 immigration expansion bill, but that “his fingerprints are all over that bill.”

The La Raza-backed Rubio-Schumer immigration bill would have granted amnesty to the illegal alien population and would have expanded immigration levels beyond all known historical precedent— issuing 33 million new immigrants on green cards in the span of a single decade, permanently transforming the U.S. electorate and economy. Every immigrant with a green card could in turn bring relatives to the United States, collect welfare, and eventually vote and thus cancel out conservative ballots.

“He was not only totally committed— he was in that room with us, with four Democrats, four Republicans… for hours a day, week after week after week,” Schumer told CNN. “His fingerprints are all over that bill. It has a lot of Rubio imprints.”

“He understood it, he molded it, he made it a tough path to citizenship,” Schumer said. “But we all agreed to it, and it would have to be a tough path to citizenship. But he was all for it.”

As many reports have indicated, in 2013 Rubio became the public face of the immigration agenda of Barack Obama, La Raza, and the Chamber of Commerce. Rubio was the “salesman” for the bill— it was Rubio’s job to sell the bill to conservative opinion makers, who had trusted him.

For instance, at the time Rubio pledged to Rush Limbaugh, “If there is not language in this bill that guarantees that nothing else will happen unless these enforcement mechanisms are in place, I won’t support it.” Even though, as Sen. Schumer explained, the bill would grant amnesty to the illegal population “on day one” before the border was secured, Rubio voted for the bill anyway.

Rubio similarly told Sean Hannity at the time, “I don’t think any of that [i.e. amnesty] begins until we certify that the border security progress has been real. That a workplace enforcement mechanism is in place. That we are tracking visitors to our country, especially when they exit.”

Rubio, however, voted against an amendment offered by his Republican colleague that would have added a visa tracking system to the Obama-backed immigration bill.

As a result, Senator Rubio succeeded in passing through the Senate a bill that would have added four times more new foreign workers than the rejected 2007 McCain-Kennedy bill.

In a recent article regarding Rubio’s refusal to commit to revoking Obama’s unconstitutional executive amnesty, Greg Sargent of the Washington Postwrites, “Rubio had hoped to fudge the issue, signaling sufficient contrition to conservatives while still keeping his positions vague enough to leave a route back to supporting some form of reform that includes legalization in the general election.”

Schumer’s declaration seems to confirm the fears of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Daniel Horowitz and other prominent conservatives, who— following Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)’s election as House Speaker— warned that the group behind the 2013 amnesty push is getting back together to push amnesty in 2017.

These conservatives argue that with Rubio in the White House, Paul Ryan in the Speakership, and Chuck Schumer as the Senate Minority Leader, it would be impossible to stop a mass immigration expansion bill. As CNN observed, Schumer has worked with both Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio on immigration. Schumer explained that, as Senate Minority leader, he would reach out and work with pro-amnesty Republicans. “I’m going to try to reach out to Republicans… I think I can work well, I’ve shown it, with the [John] McCains, the [Lindsey] Grahams, the [Lamar] Alexanders,” Schumer said.

On Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM radio, Sen. Jeff Sessions laid out a new litmus test that he says must apply to anyone running for the GOP nomination. Sessions explained that it goes without saying that a GOP nominee can’t have certain positions on certain issues. Sessions rattled off a few examples: “A Republican candidate for President cannot run in favor of Obamacare, can’t run in favor of more taxes, more spending and more debt.” Yet, while these topics are all a given point of agreement, they remain almost the exclusive focus of the GOP primary debate.

Sessions said this litmus test must be applied two two new issues— trade and immigration. Sessions has been an outspoken opponent of large-scale immigration and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Sessions said: “Goodness gracious, I don’t think a Republican candidate should be running for President that says they’re for amnesty, for even more immigration, and for trade agreements that don’t serve the national interest.”

Rubio cast the 60th deciding vote to fast-track TPP— removing the ability to amend the agreement, or apply either a 60-vote or 67-vote standard— and Rubio is the most aggressive proponent of expanding record immigration in the GOP field.

According to Pew, by a nearly 5-to-1 margin, Republican voters believe that so-called free trade agreements like the TPP will slash wages rather than raise them. Only 11 percent of GOP voters say these trade agreements would increase wages. Similarly, more than nine in ten Republican voters would like to see future immigration levels cut.